What's more, Vicinity is finding rich growth prospects for its accounts. The company is now offering locator services for cell-phone users who might want to find the nearest hotel, gas station, or FedEx drop box. This service is just starting out, but Vicinity hopes to charge corporate clients a bounty for every customer who is steered their way.
A different example shows the importance of using online partnerships to target a few key customers, instead of using a more scattershot approach. Last year, Stamps.com, which provides postage over the Internet as well as mailing and shipping services, was looking for a way to reach users of eBay. The obvious -- but expensive -- way to do this was to strike a partnership directly with eBay. That path was chosen by eStamps Corp., which agreed to pay $30 million over three years to market its service across the eBay site.
But Doug Walner, 31, senior VP for business development at Stamps.com, opted for another way to reach the eBay members he really wanted: by connecting with the 25,000 "power sellers" who constitute eBay's most active users among its nearly 16 million-member user base. Instead of trying to connect with these users through the entire eBay site, he negotiated cheaper, more-directly targeted deals with search engine AuctionRover and with other sites that cater to avid users of online auctions. These deals helped Walner hasten the adoption of Net postage while lowering customer-acquisition costs, he says.
Some of the most systematic thinking about how to partner on the Internet comes from Intuit, which is using its QuickBooks financial packages to strike up dozens of alliances that could benefit small businesses. While all sorts of new services sound exciting, Intuit manager Marc Spier, 35, wants to bet on more than his own hunches. "We test new ideas with focus groups in Cincinnati; Orange County, California; and other non-high-tech areas,'' he says. "If you go strictly by what people in Silicon Valley think, you'll get giddy.''
Spier and his team then spend time making sure that their partners have realistic views about what an alliance can accomplish. "We want to be their best-performing partner,'' he says, "but that's different from saying that we want to exceed their expectations. In some cases, the best thing that we can do is help them get their expectations under control.'' Finally, Spier ensures that the thrill-a-minute atmosphere of negotiating a deal is tempered by the active participation of line managers from both companies, who will be in charge of the project as soon as the deal is signed.
Yet for all of Intuit's planning, Spier acknowledges that he can only improve the odds of a good alliance; he can't guarantee the partnership's success. "It takes a leap of faith for both parties to believe that an Internet alliance will deliver what they want," he says. "Neither side knows enough to commit to a compelling marketing plan. In fact, if you waited until you knew everything, you'd act too late.''
George Anders (ganders@fastcompany.com), a Fast Company senior editor, is based in Silicon Valley.
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